


Ghost Spots in the Soul

by Albione



Series: Traviamento [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Elio the drama queen, M/M, ghost spots, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 20:46:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18225221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Elio walking through Paris and thinking...





	Ghost Spots in the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos!   
> This is a chapter from Elio's point of view, just a small fragment of Elio being his dramatic self. Time passes but the longing remains. The reference to Encore is taken from Luca thinking of starting the sequel with Elio crying watching this movie.   
> Next time, Elio and Oliver meet again...

The screen went white, the flickering black lines stopped and the lights went on. Elio just sat looking at the screen, far away from the small dank cinema club, blinking back tears.  
He knew that Encore would be tough, but he wondered if he had been some sort of disruption within Oliver’s neat life, if everything did actually turn out as it should have and avoided any lasting drama.

He saw a man glance towards him with a longing expression, but he turned away; he was not in the mood to be desired.  
The street was eerily quiet, the air was cold and Elio observed the steam of his breath being dragged away by the wind. He did not want to go back to his apartment, he did not have the energy.

“However said Paris is for lovers was a liar!” he liked to hear his voice aloud in the street; he wondered if the people that talk to themselves had started out like this. A small defiance to social norms that became a necessity as you realise that none listen to you.   
He wanted to walk and walk till he was too tired to continue, and just lie on the ground; he wanted to stop feeling or thinking. 

Maddalena looking at him as he told her he was leaving Milan, her look when she realised that there was no plan for her, or them, mirrored the look he must have had when he was on the phone with Oliver; the guilt ate him every time.

Etienne watching him as he got dressed in the morning light, their eyes fleetingly meeting in the large mirror over the commode; Elio lowered his gaze.  
“You are always somewhere else, I know you do not belong to me but I will be here in the meantime.”  
Elio could not answer, it was not a question, he did not have a reply even if it was. He took the cowards solution and kissed him on the lips as a garrett Judas; Etienne sighed and closed his eyes.

As he arrived to the river he stopped at the closed book stalls; one after the other the green stalls, as snake scales, clang onto the parapetes, winding along the Seine’s course.   
Childhood memories of his father searching through piles of books looking for one treasure, of his mother picking up the little red book and of him looking at the fashion plates of ladies in long frocks and wondering who they were.  
Elio glanced at Notre Dame lighted as a stage prop; he had tried to avoided it since he had arrived in Paris, too many american tourists. Tall blond american tourists, each time he saw one felt he was falling from a height, afraid but perversely enjoying the feeling.

Seeing Oliver last year had not changed anything, none the worse, none the better. Hearing his voice, feeling his presence, just reminded him of the life he wanted and would never have. It was childish, he admitted that, when he wanted something he saw he expected that the package, that his parents gave him on his birthday morning, would contain it. He had learnt to be gracious, hide the unbearable dismay when his present contained something else, but somehow he could not be gracious about Oliver.

He crossed the river and found himself in front of the Conciergerie; he wondered how it felt being imprisoned and waiting to die. He supposed the arrival of the carts was a relief, but many wanted a second more of life, pleading and begging. 

“I never pleaded, I never begged, should I have?” Was pride his downfall?   
Simone pleaded to see spring again, an extra day, a new sunset. As time approaches you stake your hopes to an ever diminishing fragment of time.   
Simone, he loved and was loved; Simone was ill and died, and knowing he was dying never touched Elio.   
Elio knew that he had been blessed by Philia, but Oliver was Agape, all the rest was Eros. How many others had been so lucky to have been loved and have loved in so many different ways?

The small streets winded, Elio followed them till he stopped in front of a large doorway.  
“The left bank, of course you would Elly Belly!” His father laughed and his mother fretted.  
“It is just a room under the roof with a shared toilet! Elio, you need more space… There is no room for a piano! I thought you were going to practice...”  
But he wanted to be as cliche as possible, starving musician, Romantic hero, he wanted it all.

As he walked up the stairs he knew Etienne was waiting for him, reading an obscure novel, smoking too much and nervously drumming his fingers against any surface close to his hands.  
Etienne sensed when Elio would closed himself to life; when memories would conjure ghost spots in unusual places. But he never said anything.

There was no need to avoid Crema, Oliver resided within him, “More myself than I am” he had known from the beginning.

Elio stopped at his door, the peeling paint made strange patterns, he saw shapes and stories that changed each day according to his mood.   
He knocked “Etienne, c’est moi...”   
But he was not sure of the moi was back home tonight or somewhere in northern Italy.


End file.
